Well, the Storytelling Fairies pitched me a double-header today. Within hours of editing a reference to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley character in the film Aliens, I found myself by sheer Synchronicity chance watching a film I haven't seen since it was at the movie theater on an obscure channel I never go to, but right under TCM, a channel I almost always look at each and every day.
As if that wasn't enough of a "tap on the shoulder" by the Storytelling Fairies, within an hour of editing a scene in Hawthorn Moon where the over all theme of the novel, centered around finding a Soul Mate, had our Armenian heroin, November Rainer Savitchian, confronted with all the men she could be soul mates with, I leave my Heritage Press remote office, the Mocha Lisa Coffee Shop, look up, and there in the sky was the most romantic of all celestial scenes...a crescent moon "kissing" it's near soulmate, the planet Saturn.
This phenomenon, though rare, I've come to almost expect when working on storytelling projects. Can I prove that the Storytelling Fairies exist...no...but how else do you explain what is happening!
SCENE INVOLVING THE SOUL MATE THEME, FROM HAWTHORN MOON
This day…what was all happening. First Gutter, now some other dude is heading towards me, a sure, steady, sexy stride. Oh my…it’s that intense Italian guy from the coffee shop, looking smoking in a slim charcoal blazer…pure sprezzatura!
“Jacamo…what the…so great to see you.”
He had me panting so that I could hardly get the words out. I almost dropped some four-letter words, but so sick of cussing, passed right by them. At this point I was done talking and wanted to start making stuff happen.
“Jacamo will get the teddies,” directed Gutter, turning to Jacamo, “Victoria’s Secret, you know at the mall next to Wet Seal. Get sizes 34B and 36C, in red lace. So, let’s go slam-a-shot man…way cool to see you. You’re looking good, have you been working out,”
Gutter squeezed Jacamo’s bulging bicep while adding one of his above average soft shoe shtick routines for editorial emphasis.
“Something about this day…I feel like anything is possible—best damn day of my life,” Gutter shared.
Jacamo nodded in that serious paisano way he had, leering at me like I was some Catholic school girl flirting with sinful thoughts during the boring parts of mass. But then, I think he looks at all girls like that.
“November…you okay, what can I get you…anything?” he asked, grounded in this studied realness that so defined him, but I shook my head, no—not even Jacamo was for the moment going to make these lips do anything but focus on the video.
Then, Gutter jumped in with, “Spice, you’re rocking it, I love all your crazy stuff. I’m telling you the delights are going to be plentiful, but here’s the big jam, the understated super-steal message of the video—you, yes you, are going to be drinking a wooden chalice filled with red wine…chalice red wine…big chalice…red…very red…Spice drinking it…in a close-the-deal big chalice.”
As they walked away, the music, the sound of the heavy bass, pounding and smoky, I couldn’t help it, I dropped the sheets and started following the beat—happy as a zombie who’d just finished a meal of monkey brains.
Hazy smoke, the milky cream color of selenite, enveloped the band, now dressed in darkness, rehearsing for the upcoming video shoot in the bowling alley ballroom. The backbeat was hauntingly familiar—I kept swallowing my heart, but felt it escaping back up my throat. I was choking…on my misguided heart…then, I saw a woman, in white, dancing in a rainbow.
DAMMIT LUNA.
Approaching the stage, there she was two-stepping around a hero of my past, one I never got to love, sweet, sweet Pauley—RIP MY HEART OUT WHY DON’T YOU, LADY LUNA.
I’m also hearing a harmonica bellow and my whole body was seizing—both living and dead at the same time. It was Marcus on the harmonica, also on stage…Marcus, the best sweet lover of my life. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
Pauley, yes Adonis like, a bass player god, who, rocking his famous riffs on his Fender Boxer Bass, he was untouchable. Luna appeared loose, without a care in the world, while also flirting with the entire audience. She was singing a lick from “Luck Be a Lady Tonight” in a seductively low whisper that was barely audible over the screeching of her lead guitar.
Alive…yes, I was, and more than merely breathing I was bursting with sweet, sweet love—Marcus and Pauley on stage, Gutter on my right and Jacamo on my left.
Overwhelmed, closing my eyes I felt naked.
What was I so afraid of…